Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Mapping the World's Street Art

Google's Street Art Project has doubled in size today. The Street Art Project showcases the work of street artists around the world. As of today the project contains over 10,000 high-resolution images of street art featuring the art work of eighty-five art organizations from 34 different countries.

Let's ignore the art however and concentrate on the Street Art Project map. If you select the 'World Collection' link from the Street Art Project's menu you will be taken to a Google Map of the featured artists. The most impressive thing about this Google Map is the animated circular information windows.

Mouse-over one of the numbered markers on the map and a circular information window grows out of the marker, featuring an example of the street art you can explore at the selected location. As the circle grows the image zooms out from a detail in the image to show the whole art work.

The overall effect is very impressive. A few years ago Google would have probably released the JavaScript code for this as a library. However Google no longer seem keen to promote Google Maps with developers so I'm guessing that if you want to replicate this effect on your own Google Maps you'll have to inspect the code yourself.